Patrick James

As Canada faces longer, more intense wildfire seasons, forestry scientists meeting the Canadian Institute of Forestry’s 117th annual conference this week say the country’s forests are drying out faster than ever, and that could transform how we manage them in the decades to come. …Among the most urgent topics is how heat and drought are changing forest moisture and fuel levels, the materials that feed wildfires. “Modest increases in temperature result in very significant reductions in fuel moisture, which makes those fuels, these trees, these shrubs, these downed trees, this dead wood, all of it that much more flammable,” said Patrick James, associate professor at the University of Toronto researching forest disturbances and wildfires. …He took part in a panel which examined how shifting weather patterns could both challenge and, in some rare cases, benefit certain ecosystems.